The SNP has made hay with the damning appraisal of Scottish Labour’s “Devo Nano” plans which was delivered this week by charity think-tank Reform Scotland, and in particular its rejection of Labour’s claims that the proposals would mean Holyrood raising 40% of its own budget.

(As we’ve noted before, we’re not very sure why anyone’s meant to find that exciting anyway. You don’t make a difference to society by changing the address of the tax office, you make it by changing what you spend your money on.)

Because it looks, not for the first time, as if Labour’s got its sums wildly wrong.

It must be said that things have reached quite a pass if Labour has managed to make Devo Plus look half-hearted and insipid. That particular group’s website has been updated precisely twice in the last 16 months, and it’s probably fair to say that it hasn’t set the Scottish public’s imagination alight.

And yet the “Devo Plus” manifesto – much mocked and ignored, including, we must admit, by this site – is still at least a far more radical proposition than Labour has put forward, proposing full command of income tax, devolution of Corporation Tax, and other changes that would see Holyrood in charge of 60% of Scottish Government revenue.

But we’re getting off the point. Reform Scotland released a handy infographic challenging Labour’s assertion, and suggesting that in fact the figure was just over 26%, rather than 40%.

Labour is yet to issue a response, as far as we’re aware, although when Johann Lamont was challenged by STV’s John Mackay about the figure on Tuesday’s edition of Scotland Tonight (4m 30s), she merely said it “felt right”, and that it was “not really a matter of arithmetic”, which we suppose is one way of getting around the problem.

(Lamont gabbled on for about another minute after those lines, and Mackay, perhaps stunned, didn’t go back and press her on it.)

But even the Reform Scotland calculation is based on the premise that Labour could deliver on its pledge. In reality, as we’ve already explored today, the chances of the party actually being able to devolve Housing Benefit – which would require extricating it from Universal Credit, in contravention of every single principle behind the very existence of Universal Credit – are slim to nil, and we’re lying about the “slim” part.

So what are Labour actually offering, over and above the powers that are already coming to Holyrood via the Scotland Act 2012 (the blue column in the graph above)? If you remove the Housing Benefit figures, you’re left with income of £8,969m and expenditure of £39,046m.

That means that “Devo Nano” would in fact raise the percentage of Scottish Parliament expenditure that the Parliament raised itself from 22.5% to… 23%.

We contacted Scottish Labour ourselves for an explanation, and to our surprise we received a reply from a spokesman within the hour, stating that “The 40% figure is absolutely accurate, and Reform Scotland’s misinterpretation can be understood if you look at the section of our report headed oh look, a squirrel!”

The more you dig into this Rev, the more you must be driven to the conclusion that it is so inept as to raise the real possibility that they mean to lose the Referendum without admitting it to their London HQ.

Ha, the comments box is back
I think it dissapeared to avoid difficult questions I think
The reverend Stuart Campbell would like not to answer,
such as is it true that you in fact are not rev Stu Campbell but you are in fact Dr Dolittle
SILENCE IN COURT , IF I DO NOT GET SILENCE I WILL CLEAR THE COURT
,Please answer the question Reverend Campbell, but remember you are still under oath!
AND I DO have my black cap somewhere!

Unionist Labour owned Aberdeen cooncil have wiped out all our grey squirrels where we live anyway. And they shot all the roe deer they could find too for their 1000 year royals reign over us jubilee thing. We’re all supposed to be “given” a tree each to remind of us who owns Scotland no doubt. Labour and money squandering eh. Its off topic but i like squirrels and roe deer and want rid our ghastly Labour council lot too.

OWNED? Is this not what ails this country that the Labour party thinks it OWNS councils?
Can we just make a pact here and now to remind the Labour party they are owners of NOTHING,
they are the servants of the people, not the other way round!

In 1979, Scotland voted narrowly ‘Yes’ in a post-legislation referendum – by 51.6 % to 48.4%. But it was not enough to surmount the hurdle introduced by a backbench Labour MP that 40% of the total Scottish electorate must turn out in support of the measure.

bfh-Has it always been Labour MPs who have put amendments to block further powers for Scotland?

o/t
Heedtracker
both Roe deer and grey squirrels are a right royal pain in the ass and we do need to reduce the deer numbers and eliminate the Grays,
no please don’t throw things at me
ouch that really hurt ;(

I see GA Posonby over in Newsnetscotland is discussing the panelbase poll which shows that the BT allaince with the Tories has damaged Labour.

Over 2/3 (66%) believe labour have been harmed with only 1/3 (34%) saying the party had not been damaged (excl DK).

Surprise Surprise.

As a life long labour supporter I’d been thinking of resigning for a number of years and finally did when Ed Balls came out and issued his statement supporting Osborne on the pound. That was it for me.

Desimond
I don’t know about you, but I think this has been one of the more amusing (unhinged) days on WOS and it is almost entirely down to the outright failure of the leading unionist party to offer anything to save the union.

Not that I would want to save the union, but is that not both depressing and alarming, if you really look at what it means? That the Westminster bubble has such little respect for the Scottish nation and yet BT still have a chance.

This is all London would allow to be offered?

BTW, it took me a while before I could post after your vid. 🙂 Bats aren’t funny. 🙁 Whooo.

Once the were confident of announcing any “data” and having it faithfully reported in the media unchallenged. Even if a group / charity or academic study challenged their figures Labour new it would never see the light of day.

Now – it’s all changed the internet gathers and collates. It makes it available to those who can refine and confirm.

Every story such as this confirms the degree to which the media has misled it’s audience.

The 2 years Labour spent creating waffle that could be spun collapsed in hours. They have misjudged the change taking place in communication.

I see how we have been controlled for all these years and I will never trust the media again.

The way the media is used and absorbed by the public has been the biggest wake up call for me, their propaganda and lies are being dissected daily by proper journalists.
As long as I breathe I will educate folks on their tactics, they will never have the free ride again to brainwash.

The lazy bastards need to stop sniffing the white stuff and start being on the ball reporters for their own good.

Stu, I read your last paragraph to my wife who normally cannot be bothered with anything to do with politics and she laughed out loud for about a minute. You may have hit on the way to engage with politically disconnected, don’t have time, female voters – interract via squirrels.

O/T Today’s Panelbase poll for Newsnet is really good isn’t it? Surprised more hasn’t been made of it on here as yet.

And on the topic of polls, just did one for YouGov, a very straight IndyRef poll, almost certainly for the Times as they asked if I’d agree to be interviewed by that newspaper at the end. YouGov is hopelessly skewed of course but I confidently look forward to seeing a positive swing from their last poll.

Yes, we can all laugh at the Labour party’s feeble attempts at any kind of coherent policy, and yes we all know that their ideas fall apart, especially under Stuart’s forensic examination. The same can be said about “Project Fear” whose sole idea now seems to be the same regurgitated false scare stories that are long past their sell-by date. But, and I believe it’s a big but. This is the “state”, Westminster, we are fighting, and between now and the 18th, September, they will use every dirty trick in the book, and no doubt some that aren’t spoken about. They don’t like losing, and if the polls even suggest that we are going to win, watch out.

Does anyone have a programme for the SLab conference? Not that I want to go. Just wondering.

Do you have you be a member to get in?

(Gor blimey guv, talk about a ‘feed’? – go for it, someone…)

Will they be having ‘break-out’ groups? i.e. which groups will try to break out first? Methinks it will be all and sundry associated with this Playskool report. Did you know it’s been printed on tracing paper? Aye – with the slightest bit of pressure you can see right through it.

Well, at the risk of sounding ‘pro Labour’, and I am definately not. Perhaps JL really did thunk she could make a difference. Forgetting that devolution was always to be ‘joined up government’, difering only when the Tories were in power.

What she has found is that her leadership is ‘devolved’, her wishes are at the ‘reserved’ disposal of her bretherin.

IMHO, that is why she is unable to ‘square the circle’, and leaving herself out to dry. Maybe she has more guts than her predecessor, learning the lesson the hard way. If true, I can muster a modicum of respect for her. What I truly wonder at, however, is why shy did not learn the lesson from Henry, who really did try to devolve?

Actually cannae wait to see if Flipper, F*ck off Murphy, Chairchoob, HMS Hood, Anus, Dontahoe and the rest of the soon to be redundant SLab MP’s turn up at the conference and especially if they are there for the ‘leaders’ speech..could be good

I take my hat off to yourself, and all the others who have managed to work out what the **** Labour are gibbering about!

I am no longer surprised that Johann just blethered away some sort of regurgitated political-type thesaurus to Brewer the other night, and I take my hat off to the man that he was able to see through the fog of lies / deception/ drivel / pish (and still work out!) what the **** she was trying to say (if even she was doing that!)

O.K. folks this is purely for those undecided amongst us, and we all know who we are now don’t we! Just to give all those undecideds amongst us some hope I have already done the questionaire and come up as an UNDECIDED! No seriously I am *drum roll please* a YES voter. 🙂

Marcia I think a George Galloway v T Sheridan would produce more fireworks!.
I did not think A. Sanwar could parachute into “F.M.Q.” , so who’s the deputy’s deputy ?! . Also watched A . Carmichael giving evidence to the European committee , ALL of it!!, what a absolute arc———-le that fellow is, the sooner he, and his like are tossed onto the scrap heap the better, if any of you want to feel how it is to be REALLY angry , have a look at the TV archive .

NNS story. Pressure on Carmichael to clarify his outburst a few days ago by the Scottish Parliament’s Europe and External Relations Committee. Rev had a thread on it.

At the NFUS debate on Monday, Mr Carmichael said that the leaders of the three main UK parties were ‘completely committed’ to remaining part of Europe and that there was no real prospect of a UK referendum on EU membership because of there not being a ‘mechanism’ for the Conservative party to deliver one.

Mr Carmicheal said, to gasps of disbelief from the audience: “There is no question of there being a referendum. There is no mechanism for the Conservatives to deliver a referendum 2017. That is the hard political fact.”

Look out folks cause after we win a YES victory in September it will not be the Scottish government who will be negotiating Scotland’s future in the E.U. it will be the Westminster government. WOW! This must be true cause Alistair Carmichael is reported to have said it. 🙂

I was phoned yesterday by ipsos mori for an Indy opinion poll. They asked the yes/no question first then bombarded me with questions straight out of the no campaign fear tactics book. It was like being grilled by alaistair Darling. No wonder ipsos mori polls are more skewed in favour of no.

I see Yahoo has decided to move to Dublin. Theresa May held talks with the internet firm over its concerns over the UK surveillance activity, which is partially behind the decision to leave the UK. When asked about the meeting a Home Office spokesperson said: “We do not confirm the details of private meetings.”……

Referring back to the theme of this article on Devo Nano, Devo Anything enables Westminster to continue to invoice Scotland for whatever costs it can dream up. Servicing the UK debt, defence, Trident, Civil Service administration, House of Lords etc etc.

And hats off to Clootie. “The Labour party spent two years creating waffle that could be spun” – in the past by the BBC and MSM – “and it collapsed within hours” – thanks to the internet and analysis by sites like WOS.

For anyone who is up to date with their distributional analysis then this might be for you. Here is the Westminster government’s “Impact on households” distributional analysis to accompany the 2014 budget.

Anyhow OT still further…..Calling all Perthshire squirrels – a group of Perth & Kinross Yes are manning a stall so If you’re at a loose end over weekend, why not go and say hello to Johann, she’ll be at the Concert Hall, she’ll be looking out for you when Big Brian asks her a difficult question (..we know, it does happen occasionally..)

Mr Carmichael Sec State Scotland has just gone OTT.
Report in Herald got in through ‘chrome’ but no archive allowed. EU will remove our citizenship if we vote YES

Mr Carmichael also rejected the opinion of European Court judge Sir David Edward, who said Scottish citizens would not automatically lose their EU citizenship if they voted to leave the UK.

He cited the case of suspected fraudster Janko Rottman, who lost his German and Austrian dual citizenship and was rendered stateless by the EU.

Mr Carmichael said: “The court heard that a member state must exercise its powers to withdraw an individual’s nationality compatibly with the principles of EU law.

“That in itself is a very clear recognition by the European Court of Justice that the question of citizenship in EU terms of the sort that Sir David was talking about is quite different and that it can indeed be withdrawn.

“And I think it would be quite consistent with that judgement to say that if Scotland were to vote to leave the UK and tends to leave the EU then one of the consequences of that would be a loss of EU citizenship.

Just to say that I have a wee squirrel who visits my garden every day for peanuts and also comes halfway into the house ergo, I call him Tam(e)ish, as he’s only half tame. 🙂 If he’s in earshot, he comes when I call his name as he knows he’ll get some monkey nuts in their shell, his favourites.

As the case itself notes, the member state can in certain circumstances withdraw a citizen’s EU citizenship, not the EU. So the only way Carmichael’s logic can work is if either state involved for Scottish citizens – the UK during negotiation or Scotland after them – withdraws the EU citizenship of all 5.3 million Scots. That is not going to happen, and even if they tried, it would undoubtedly be challenged in a Scottish court, and fail due to the nature of Scottish sovereignty.

I,m hearing that another political pigmy from down south is going to make a speech in which he will claim that a combination of Scottish independence, and a Tory victory in the 2015 General Election, will be a race to the bottom. Now while the latter part of his statement might well be correct, who the hell does he think he is dragging us into the cesspit that is Westminster.The arrogance of these people knows no bounds. They seem to think that they own us lock, stock, and North Sea oil, well, at the moment they actually do, but come the 18th September we can change all that, for good. Not that he, Miliband, has any chace of winning the aforementioned election, but the prospect of being governed by Boris and Nigel, is even more repellant. If that scenario comes to pass, then we can kiss goodbye not only to any chance of being an independent country, ever, but also to a Scottish Parliament, as I believe Westminster would gradally denude Holyrood of it limited powers, and then finally abolish it altogether.

I’m sure if the squirrels all stood for labour there are those who would still vote fer them, of course they would have to be red squirrels

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